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Dissenting Views Made Fallon's Fall

Inevitable
Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Mar 11 (IPS) - Admiral William Fallon's request to quit his

position as head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and to retire
from the military was apparently the result of a George W. Bush
administration decision to pressure him to resign.
Announcing the resignation, Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates said he believed it
was "the right thing to do", thus indicating the administration wanted it.
On Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell, asked whether Gates still had
full confidence in Fallon, would only say that Fallon "still enjoys a working -- a good
working relationship with the secretary of defence", and then added, "Admiral Fallon
serves at the pleasure of the president."
The resignation came a few days after the publication of an Esquire magazine article
profiling Fallon in which he was described as being "in hot water" with the White
House and justified public comments departing from the Bush administration's policy
toward Iran. The publicity that followed the article accelerated the pressure on Fallon
to resign.
But Fallon almost certainly knew that he would be fired when he agreed to cooperate
with the Esquire magazine profile in late 2006.
On Tuesday, Fallon issued a statement saying, "Recent press reports suggesting a
disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a
distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region."
The resignation brings to an end a year, during which time Fallon clashed with the
White House over policy toward Iran and with Gen. David Petraeus and the White
House over whether Iraq should continue to be given priority over Afghanistan and
Pakistan in U.S. policy.
Fallon's greatest concern appears to have been preventing war with Iran. He was one
a group of senior military officers, apparently including most of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, who were alarmed in late 2006 and early 2007 by indications that Bush and
Vice-President Dick Cheney were contemplating a possible attack on Iran.
Gates chose Fallon to replace Gen. John P. Abizaid as CENTCOM chief shortly after a
Dec. 13, 2006 meeting between Bush and the Joint Chiefs at which Bush reportedly
asked their views on a possible strike against Iran.
Col. W. Patrick Lang, a former intelligence officer on the Middle East for the Defence
Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post last week that Fallon had said privately
at the time of his confirmation that an attack on Iran "isn't going to happen on my
watch", When asked how he could avoid such a conflict, Fallon reportedly responded,
"I have options, you know." Lang said he interpreted that comment as implying Fallon
would step down rather than follow orders to carry out such an attack.
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As IPS reported last May, Fallon was also quoted as saying privately at that time,
"There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box". That was an
apparent reference to the opposition by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to an aggressive war
against Iran.
Even before assuming his new post at CENTCOM, Fallon expressed strong opposition
in mid-February to a proposal for sending a third U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian
Gulf, to overlap with two other carriers, according to knowledgeable sources. The
addition of a third carrier was to part of a broader strategy then being discussed at
the Pentagon to intimidate Iran by making a series of military moves suggesting
preparations for a military strike.
The plan for a third carrier task force in the Gulf was dropped after Fallon made his
views known.
Fallon reportedly made his opposition to a strike against Iran known to the White
House early on in his tenure, and his role as CENTCOM commander would have made
it very difficult for the Bush administration to carry out a strike against Iran, because
he controlled all ground, air and naval military access to the region.
But Fallon's role in regional diplomacy proved to be an even greater source of friction
with the White House than his position on military policy toward Iran. Personal
relations with military and political leaders in the Middle East had already become
nearly as important as military planning under Fallon's predecessors at CENTCOM.
Fallon clearly relished his diplomatic role and did not hesitate to express views on
diplomacy that were at odds with those of the administration. Last summer, as Dick
Cheney was maneuvering within the administration to shift U.S. policy toward an
attack on bases in Iran allegedly connected to anti-U.S. Shiite forces in Iraq, Fallon
declared in an interview, "We have to figure out a way to come to an arrangement"
with Iran.
When Sunni Arab regimes in the Middle East became alarmed about the possibility of
a U.S. war with Iran, Fallon made statements on three occasions in September and
November ruling out a U.S. attack on Iran. Those statements contradicted the Bush
administration's policy of keeping the military option "on the table" and soured
relations with the White House.
Fallon also antagonised administration officials by pushing for a faster exit from Iraq
than the White House and Gen. Petraeus wanted. Fallon had a highly-publicised
personal and policy clash with Petraeus, for whom he reportedly expressed a visceral
dislike. Sources familiar with reports of his meetings with Petraeus in Baghdad last
March told IPS last spring that he called him an "ass-kissing little chickens**t" in their
first meeting.
Fallon later denied that he had used such language, suggesting to Esquire that the
sources of the report were probably army officers who were indulging in inter-service
rivalry with the navy. In fact, however, the sources of the report were supporters of
Fallon.
Fallon's quarrel with Petraeus was also related to the latter's insistence on keeping
U.S. troops in Iraq, even while the NATO position in Afghanistan was growing more
tenuous. Fallon was strongly committed to a strategy that gave priority to
Afghanistan and Pakistan as the central security challenges to the United States in
the Middle East and Asia.
Fallon made his distaste for a long war in Iraq very clear from the beginning. He
ordered subordinates to stop using the term "long war", which had been favoured by
the Bush administration. He was reported to be concerned that the concept would
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alienate people across the Middle East by suggesting a U.S. intention to maintain
troops indefinitely in Muslim countries.
Fallon's policy positions made him unpopular among neoconservative supporters of
the administration. One neoconservative pundit, military specialist Max Boot,
criticised Fallon last November for his public comment ruling out a strike against Iran
and then suggested in January that Petraeus should replace the "unimpressive"
Fallon at CENTCOM.
Fallon was playing a complex political game at CENTCOM by crossing the White
House on the two most politically sensitive issues in Middle East policy. As a veteran
bureaucratic infighter, he knew that he was politically vulnerable. Nevertheless, he
chose late last year not to lower his profile but to raise it by cooperating fully with the
Esquire article.
IPS has learned that Fallon agreed to sit for celebrity photographer Peter Yang at
CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa Dec. 26 for the Esquire spread, despite the near-
certainty that it exacerbate his relations with White House. That may have been a
signal that he already knew that he would not be able to continue to play the game
much longer and was ready to bring his stormy tenure at CENTCOM to an end.
*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. The paperback
edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to
War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.